Lending ventures for emerging markets
Asta Ventures is a Dubai-based company for emerging-market fintech. It develops consumer lending ventures for markets where formal credit remains difficult to obtain. Each venture is individually funded and operates on an IT platform adapted to a specific market.
Build and operate
Each project draws on two contributions from Asta Ventures: the capital that funds it and the platform it operates on. The same structure of lending technology is deployed in different markets, which shortens the path from business decision to a live product.
Proprietary capital, committed venture by venture
Asta Ventures is a privately held company. It commits its own capital to consumer lending projects in emerging markets and builds each one from zero — from local licensing and underwriting to the architecture it runs on.
- Consumer lending products: Payday loans, BNPL, Installment loans
- Local licensing, underwriting and market entry
- Follow-on capital as a project and its loan book mature
Lending platform designed to scale
Every project operates on the same lending stack: the customer application, the risk engine, the origination platform and the loan-management system, each configured for its market and its licensing route.
- White-label consumer application — web and mobile
- AI scoring and decisioning — built for sub-five-minute approvals
- Loan origination, servicing, collections and reporting
- Local compliance, eKYC and payment-rail integrations
Four modules. One lending business
Lending infrastructure based on best practice and deployed market by market. One engine supports the full product range — Payday loans, BNPL, Installment loans — and the platform can be adopted in full or module by module.
Customer application
A white-label web and mobile product carrying the venture's own brand: onboarding, limit, disbursal, repayment schedule and support in one flow, localised down to the language and the tone.
Risk & scoring engine
Configurable scorecards on alternative and behavioural data, champion–challenger testing on live traffic, and a platform target of sub-five-minute decisions — tuned per country and per product.
Origination platform
The full application journey — eKYC and identity, document capture, anti-fraud, offer generation, e-signature and disbursal — wired into local payment rails and bureaus.
Loan management & servicing
Accounting for the live book: instalment schedules, early repayment, restructuring, behaviour-based collections, and reporting for partners, regulators and auditors.
One engine, configured per market. A company can take the whole platform or plug a single module into what it already runs. Modules are in development and are deployed market by market, subject to the licensing route in each one.
From market study to a live loan book
Four stages take a venture from an assessed market to its first disbursed loan. The sequence is the same in every country; the licensing route and the local integrations differ.
Market and regulation
Demand, credit behaviour and the regulatory perimeter of a target country are assessed, together with the licensing routes available to a new lender there.
Structure and licensing
The venture is incorporated and capitalised, and its regulatory position is settled: lending under its own licence, or through a licensed bank or NBFC partner.
Platform deployment
Customer application, risk engine, origination and servicing are configured to local regulation, credit bureaus and payment rails, and taken through to launch.
Portfolio growth
Scorecards are tuned against observed repayment behaviour, funding lines are opened with local partners, and the loan book is grown within agreed risk limits.
Young, mobile, underbanked
Three conditions define a target market: a young population, smartphone penetration ahead of bank-branch coverage, and a regulatory framework that admits digital credit.
India · Philippines · Indonesia
- India: ~190M unbanked adults, fintech credit growing 30%+ a year
- Philippines: over 70% of adults without access to formal credit
- Indonesia: the world's fourth-largest population, mobile-first
Kenya · Nigeria · South Africa
- The highest share of unbanked adults anywhere on earth
- Mobile-money accounts already outnumber bank accounts
- Kenya: mobile money is the default account for most adults
Mexico · Colombia · Peru
- Mexico: a large, cash-heavy consumer economy with thin formal credit coverage
- A large gig-economy workforce with no salary history
- Regulation moving quickly to license digital lenders
Egypt · Morocco · Saudi Arabia
- Egypt: 65M+ adults outside the formal banking system
- Morocco: fast-expanding digital payments infrastructure
- Saudi Arabia: Vision 2030 driving fintech adoption at scale
JiBiLi is built on the Asta stack
JiBiLi is a consumer lending project for emerging markets, developed in partnership with Asta Ventures and preparing for full launch in India in 2027. It has its own brand and plans to operate on the Asta platform.
Digital public infrastructure, account aggregators and real-time payments have made it possible to underwrite in minutes what once took weeks. Millions of creditworthy borrowers — first-time salaried professionals, small business owners, households outside the metro cities — still find formal credit slow, opaque or out of reach. That gap is what JiBiLi is being built for.
Its own brand and management
JiBiLi is built on the complete Asta stack — customer app, scoring engine, origination and servicing. It will operate under its own brand and management, lending in partnership with a non-banking financial company.
Capital and technology in one structure
Building a lending business from zero normally requires a long engineering cycle before the first loan is issued. Holding the capital and the platform in one structure removes that cycle and shortens the route to market.
Time to market
A venture launches on infrastructure already built to originate, score and service credit in these markets, and spends its early capital on customers and licensing.
Credit expertise in-house
Fifteen years of operating experience in emerging-market lending sits inside the firm. Scorecards, collections and unit economics are worked on directly, week to week.
A base between markets and capital
The UAE base sits between European, Asian and African capital flows, which supports introductions to funding partners, banks and merchant networks as a venture scales.
The team behind the vision
Asta Ventures brings together rare expertise: from AI engineering and database development to financial consulting and international expansion. Our team is our primary competitive advantage.
Georgiy Shabad
Investor & Managing Partner
Private entrepreneur in IT, payment systems, financial products, and microfinance with over 35 years of operational experience across Europe, the USA, and Africa.
- Founder of several media outlets in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
- Founder of digital signage companies in Germany and the USA.
- Founder and Director of payroll funding and payment companies in several African countries.
- Held senior leadership positions, including chairman roles, at several banks and microfinance institutions.
- Chaired several payment systems.
- Holds a degree in Applied Mathematics and Cybernetics.
Chief AI Officer
Machine learning, scoring models for emerging markets.
Head of Data
High-load fintech databases architecture.
CCO
Market entry, partnerships, sales scaling.
Head of Risk
Portfolio risk, antifraud systems.
Head of Product
Full-cycle fintech development.
The UAE: between capital and opportunity
Asta Ventures was founded in Dubai in 2022. It combines venture investment with an engineering team building the lending technology its projects operate on.
Firm founded
Asta Ventures established in Dubai, combining financial consulting with venture investment.
Emerging-market fintech
Digital credit and financial services for people the banking system has left outside it.
Lending platform
Customer application, risk engine, origination and servicing in development as one modular platform.
JiBiLi
First project: a consumer lending platform in preparation, with full launch in India planned for 2027.
Further markets
The same model extended across the four target regions, each venture launched on the platform.
Enquiries and partnerships
We are looking for partners who want to shape the platform with us. Questions about the model, the platform or the project are welcome, and enquiries are answered by email.